


sex with a ghost

by ectobaby



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Homestuck 2: Beyond Canon, M/M, Masturbation, Mentions of Alcohol as Coping Mechanism, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, The Homestuck Epilogues: Candy, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:26:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24396520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectobaby/pseuds/ectobaby
Summary: “If you’re open to suggestions,” Dirk says, much too casually, “I think I can help.”(Or— Jake can't sleep and BGD helps.)
Relationships: Jake English/Dirk Strider
Comments: 15
Kudos: 142





	sex with a ghost

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first time writing jake and boy, was i nervous! uhh, this is just a really self-indulgent fic that takes place in the HS2 candy timeline. and a disclaimer: there is no _actual_ sex with a ghost. just you know, what it says in the tags. but i couldn't pass up using that title when every time i hear the song, i think of dirkjake. but on second thought, maybe i should call it gettin’ jiggy with a rifle. LOL 
> 
> most of this was written during an 8hr layover, and then a 5hr plane ride, on almost no sleep. no beta, and hopefully i combed all the worst mistakes out. but, yeah! enjoy my jet-lagged nonsense, please.

He can’t sleep—at least not in this particular bed, in this particular house. And definitely not without the aid of smooth, sweet bourbon. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, or so they say.

Fuck a spoonful. Jake’s fairly certain this whole nightmare of a situation calls for a whole damn bottle, maybe two. That’d certainly do it. Nothing quite like the burn of alcohol to dull his senses and make his eyes heavy—but Jane put padlocks on all the liquor cabinets ages ago, back when he first picked up the nasty habit. There’s a chance she removed them but, considering she never realized he’d left in the first place, he doubts it.

Where’s the harm in checking though? He could jimmy a lock if he needs too.

“You’re never going to fall asleep if you don’t shut up.”

Jake turns violently in his nest of blankets to level a glare at the other _very_ prominent contribution to his insomnia—and even more prominent reason as to why he’s back playing at trophy husband in the first place.

Dirk, of the brain ghost variety.

Oh, well. He’s up now, isn’t he? May as well have a good back-and-forth to tire him out. “I haven’t said a thing,” he correctly points out. 

Dirk’s expression remains impassive as he stretches mid-air, arms high above his head. “No, not out loud. But I can hear you thinking.”

“You cannot,” Jake says, but it lacks confidence. Because, despite carting one around in his head for decades, he’s not very well-versed in the capabilities of brain ghosts. He scratches at his chin. “Uh, can you?”

For an answer, Dirk shrugs; frustratingly vague as always. It should annoy him but, strangely, it brings more comfort than anything, a warm nostalgic feeling that settles beneath his ribcage. It’s nice, drudging up old memories, some good and some bad, all rose-tinted with age and grievance.

He’s missed him, Jake thinks. More than a bit. A shame they never got the chance—

No. Best not to fall down that rabbit hole. Thinking about Dirk’s death— _his_ Dirk’s death, the real Dirk—never lands him anywhere good, and so Jake buries the budding pang in his chest and focuses on the semi-corporeal form floating lazily next to him.

“I can’t very well sleep with you staring at me, can I?”

“Don’t assume I’m looking at you,” Dirk smarts. There’s a hint of a smile playing at the edge of his lips, and before Jake can feel too insecure about that remark, he continues, “I’m silently judging your wife’s choice in décor, for the record. Seriously, so much red. I hope you two weren’t thinking of puttin’ the place on the market any time soon. This is every realtor’s nightmare.”

“It’s…”

Trailing off, Jake tries to come up with a pleasant adjective to describe the bedroom out of spite alone. It’s large, spacious, and everything is a variant of deep red or dark mahogany. Floors, walls, curtains—even the blanket he’s wrapped in, the silk sheets, the sheer canopy draping from the four-post bed.

There’s nothing pleasant about it. Not a stitch in the room has his touch, and it’d been trussed up for him specifically.

Jake grits his teeth. “It’s garish.”

“You can say that again,” Dirk says mildly, tugging on a lampshade tassel with his spectral fingers. “Does she sleep in here too?”

Oh, for the love of—Dirk damn well knows the answer to that!

Jake burrows his head in his hands in a futile attempt to hide the heat rising to his cheeks. The room doesn’t need to be a shade redder, and so he refuses to blush. It’s just that, well, the truth is embarrassing, all things considered.

He and Jane hadn’t shared a room in the conventional sense in years. Their marital bed was a figurative concept, made tangible whenever she decided that she fancied him. But even those nights had grown sparse, nearly non-existent, long before he left.

“No,” he says and, to preserve some dignity, adds, “Janey is a modern woman.”

Dirk barks out a laugh. But whatever catty quip he had loaded up dies on his tongue when he looks back over, quietening with the crestfallen way Jake averts his eyes. His expression softens, almost apologetic.

Jake thinks he might prefer the teasing when it comes to his dismal marriage arrangement; the sympathy is nearly too much. Especially sympathy coming from _this_ particular version of Dirk. How exactly is he supposed to feel when the only person that’s looked at him with pity is just a ghost that lives in his head? Nothing but a piece of his old subconscious. And doesn’t that check out? All he’s ever been good at is feeling sorry for himself.

“It’s not so bad, is it?” Jake says quietly. “Compared to the alternative?”

“Yeah. Not really,” Dirk hums and shifts so that he’s still suspended in air, lounging on his side in a rather distracting display of forced casualness. “Man, what happened to her?”

“What, indeed. It’s odd. I don’t know how to describe it but, it feels…”

His mouth snaps shut. The thing is, he really doesn’t know how to describe it. Every time he’s ever tried to put a name to the feeling about the ordeal, the words escape him and his thoughts wisp-like smoke through his fingers before he’s given the chance to grasp them.

And he’s tried many, many times. Normally, it ends with him nursing a bottle until he’s safe in slumber. Body heavy and his head empty in dreamless sleep; except for those nights where— 

Jake looks over to Dirk and frowns, perplexed once again by an understanding that’s not quite there, yet feels close enough to touch. He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Right,” Dirk drags out the vowel, expression unreadable; mostly to blame on the dark tint of his glasses making it damn near impossible and the fact that Jake’s not wearing his. “You really should try and get some sleep though. Busy day tomorrow with the clown funeral…Jesus Christ. How is this your life?”

“To be fair, it’s not. I was happily living far from this mess if you can recall.”

Dirk waves him off. “Details.”

“You’re right,” he sighs. “Forty winks will do me a bit of good.”

“Do you want me to be honest?”

“Not particularly, no,” Jake tells Dirk, even though it’s unlikely to deter him.

“You may need more than forty. You might be better off pulling a Rip Van Winkle. Sleep for twenty years and miss the revolution.”

That’s what he’d been trying to do all along! Jake pointedly ignores him and worms his way back down, sinking into the mattress beneath warm covers.

All clever jests aside, it’s still a nice thought—to just sleep until this is all over; until Jane has claimed her heinous victory or fallen in defeat. The outcome doesn’t matter much to him anymore and, selfishly he’s not sure that it ever did. Dirk claimed on some level he must know that he’s a valuable piece in this chess game. It’s just all a little difficult to comprehend. Especially when building a remote cabin in the woods to fuck off by himself, telling no one where he’s gone and living out the rest of his immortality, sounds like a tip-top plan. Free to do whatever he wants, whenever he pleases. Alone.

Or, perhaps with Brain Ghost Dirk, provided he’s still around.

Flat on his back, melted into the duvet, Jake closes his eyes and tries again to sleep. This time, Dirk keeps to himself, offering no added commentary, and the silence becomes damn near audible, buzzing in his ears. He turns on his side, his back to Dirk. When that doesn’t work, he turns again, in the opposite direction. He rolls to his stomach and then rolls on his back to stare at the ceiling. Drat.

“Drat.”

“That’s definitely an applicable sentiment, sure.”

“I don’t understand,” Jake groans, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm until spots blossom at the corners of his vision. It makes no sense. Nothing makes sense. “I’m exhausted! Mentally, physically, and in just about all the ways a fella can be exhausted!”

Dirk looks at him, eyebrow raised. Something in the pit of Jake’s stomach tells him he’s either not going to like what comes out of that phantom mouth…or he’s going to like it a bit _too_ much. It's hard to tell which prospect terrifies him the most.

“If you’re open to suggestions,” Dirk says, much too casually, “I think I can help.”

Jake turns to his side again, this time facing him. Dirk sits at the edge of the bed now, poised like he’s deciding whether or not to crawl in. There’s no dip in the mattress where he sits weightlessly, and that alone makes Jake’s heart pull tight. Touching isn’t impossible but it’s a strange sensation, more akin to a faint tickle of the breeze on his skin. And that’s not exactly how he remembers Dirk handling him.

“Well, I don’t see what it could hurt. Fire away. I’m nothing but ears.”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “You should try rubbing one out.”

“Pardon?”

“You know. Jerk off.” Nonchalantly, Dirk mimes the universal gesture for exactly that. “I’d offer to do it for you, but I don’t think my ghostly grip would be good for much more than a couple hours of edging.”

Jake tries not to choke on his tongue. “No!”

“Why not?”

“You know why!”

“I don’t, actually,” Dirk says and decides to go whole hog, scooting down the bed to lay on his side, propped by his elbow to mirror Jake. “That’s because _you_ don’t know. That’s how this works.”

He’s so close now and without his glasses to make things clear, Jake can almost pretend that he’s not transparent. Just normal, human Dirk. Head attached, lying in his bed rather than a coffin.

Swallowing down the nervous lump in his throat, he murmurs, “I don’t know how this works either.”

“You know more than you let on,” Dirk says. The sincerity in his voice pierces straight through Jake’s chest like a dagger. A rare lovely, honest moment of understanding between a bro and his old flame. That must be why it’s followed up with— “Now. Are you going to whip it out or not?”

“I’m not. Now, don’t you ask me again,” Jake says with absolutely no conviction.

“Who knew a guy with a mustache could be such a prude.”

“I’d greatly appreciate it if you left my mustache out of your false accusations, thank you.”

Dirk rolls his eyes. He can’t see it, but Jake knows that he does like a sixth sense. Just like he knows what they’re both thinking right about now—how it’d always done the trick before. Maybe Dirk was right. Maybe he _does_ know things.

That still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

“Used to put you to sleep like a baby,” Dirk says, mouth curving softly at the corner. Probably replaying a fond memory that features his hand on Jake, lazily working him until he's finished and falling asleep before he can reciprocate.

But Jake always returned the favor in the morning, like an honorable chap.

“I remember,” he mumbles, eyes following the movement of Dirk’s hand until it lands at his elbow to stroke feather-light down his forearm. “I’m starting to suspect you just want to watch me do it.”

“Well, yeah,” Dirk says without inhibition. “Obviously.”

The confession travels in the form of a shiver down Jake’s chest, below his happy trail, and right into the waistband of his sleep pants. Apparently, he’s an easy man because that’s all it takes to convince him.

Jake takes a deep breath. “Well, the bed _is_ a poor man’s opera.”

“Mhm, sure,” Dirk replies with a distracted hum. He tilts his head to look down between them. “That’s what they say.”

“Hey, can I request a favor?” Jake asks him, and Dirk nods. It’s a big courtesy, he’s aware, but he’s gotta try. He wants to see him, all of him. “Take those shades off, will you?”

Dirk looks exactly as he did the last time that they’d found themselves in a bed together. Early twenties and full of yearning and hope. Sure, maybe hope had always been more his thing, but it had lingered behind Dirk’s eyes whenever he looked his way. A hope that they might work things out, that Jake might get it together. He never did. And sometimes Jake wonders…

Well, he wonders if maybe he’d be looking into amber eyes instead of cloudy, ghostly white ones. If they’d have laugh lines at the edges, or if his freckles would have faded.

“This is how you picture me,” Dirk explains. “Kinda morbid, bro. Not even going to lie. I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised though, seeing that your first kiss was with my severed head.”

Jake makes a noise of disgust and decides it’s in both their best interests that he doesn’t make mention of the fact it’d been his Auto-Responder’s consciousness attached to his severed head. Frowning, he says truthfully, “I don’t think I want to hear much about that right now.”

“Fair.” Dirk pauses, looking him up and down, voice going low. “What do you want to hear then?”

There’s a challenge there, buried beneath his sultry tone. The beginnings of a game.

“You said you wanted to watch,” Jake starts but it’s fair to say he’s out of practice—his more recent trips to the bar didn’t typically leave him in any condition to seek carnal relations.

“I did.”

Dirk, laid so close that their chests might bump if Jake chose to lean into it, watches him with silent curiosity and that visual alone ignites a flame of confidence. Licking his bottom lip, Jake dips his head, forcing eye contact. He needs Dirk to know exactly what he’s asking for. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

His white eyes widen slightly, lips parting and eyebrows furrowing. “You want me to be in control,” Dirk says. Not a question but a breathless observation.

“I do.”

“Okay, then. Sure. I can do that.”

 _I know_ , Jake thinks.

He’s had a lot of time to think about Dirk Strider. Control was always something that Dirk craved, longing for the very crux of his insecurities and projected confidence, both genuine and false, whether he realized it or not. It wasn’t something Jake truly recognized back when they were young either. Not the extent of it, or the reasons why it mattered so much. Because where Jake had found freedom in his isolation, Dirk had found a prison in which he could tug the reins. It’s no wonder any slip of that caused him to get a little scrambled. Makes sense, in retrospect.

But retrospect doesn’t mean much of anything anymore, does it? 

“On your back,” Dirk says finally, gaze low and hooded.

Jake complies without a fuss, rolling over to his lay flat against the mattress as instructed. It’s with the movement that he notices the distractingly hard situation happening below the belt, a brush of soft pajama bottoms against his dick that makes him hiss. There’s no time to wonder when exactly _that_ popped up because Dirk’s slinging a leg over his lap to settle his weightless body on the tops of his thighs.

“I forgot how you looked from this angle,” Dirk says. He tilts his head down and smiles, leaning forward to place his hands against the spread of Jake’s chest.

Even if he can barely feel it, Jake has a fine imagination and a sharp, vivid memory of their old shenanigans, despite his recent tendency to binge. “I’ll admit, I was thinking something very similar,” he tells him.

Attempting to place his hands on Dirk’s hips proves to be a fruitless endeavor with nothing truly tangible to rest them on. It provides a new ache of loss and longing, but he quickly recovers from the fumble by palming the tent in his trousers with both hands as if that’s what he’d always meant to do. Not that he’s set to complain about his choice when the contact offers immediate relief, a content sigh escaping.

Dirk raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t tell you to do that.”

“No, I guess not.” Jake repeats the motion, this time pressing harder, dragging the heel of his palm down his entire length, and he grits his teeth, breathing heavily through his nose. Above him, Dirk appears next to faint, watching the movement with a familiar intensity. “Can’t say it looks like you’re complaining.”

“Keep it up and you won’t be saying anything,” Dirk hums. Less of a threat, more of a promise. “But no, I’m not complaining. Pull your pants down.”

He doesn’t need telling twice. Hooking his thumbs in the waistband, Jake goes to quickly tug himself free but stops when he feels the tickle of Dirk’s hand against his wrist. “What?”

“Slowly.”

Ah.

Dirk tended to be right about most things, and Jake can admit that sometimes he didn’t like it very much. This is not one of those times. The slow drag of soft fabric against him provides delightful friction, just enough to tease. It somehow makes the satisfaction that much grander when he springs free to slap hot against his belly.

Dirk whistles through his teeth and Jake’s face goes hot. “Flattery will get you nowhere,” he says in mock protest of the blatant ogling he’s receiving from Dirk’s end.

“Hey. I’m no heathen to the arts. I can appreciate a prime specimen of the human figure without an ulterior motive. Ain’t nothing gotta be in it for me to admit that’s a nice—Okay, okay. Sorry.”

Truth be told, he doesn’t mind it in the least. It’s just if he has to lay here, pinned down by Dirk’s thighs while he rambles on likening his dick to art, this might all be over quicker than it started. He’s not a young lad, by any stretch of the imagination, but everyone has their vices. It’s been a long time since he’s had Dirk Strider straddling his lap and he’d like to make it count.

“Use one hand,” Dirk instructs, snapped back into the game he’s playing. “Don’t grab yourself just yet. Tease it. Good, just like that.”

Jake tries not to preen at the praise. The ambient lighting of the bedroom hides the flush of his tanned skin, but it doesn’t hide the way his body responds to his fingertips lightly trailing from base to tip and back again. Cruelly slow in his ministrations.

He keeps it up until he’s so hard that each tender touch hurts, his body craving something more vigilant and rougher. Even when his head goes dizzy and it borders too much, Jake keeps it up spurred on by the intense attention of Dirk’s eyes on him. Every so often he gets another hum of approval, and finally a quiet— _“That’s it, get yourself hard.”_

Never mind that he’s positive that he could cut a precious stone with how rock solid he is, leaking so much now that every drag of his fingertips along his slit leaves him wetter.

“Christ on a fucking cracker, Dirk,” Jake hisses. “I _am_ hard. Can I—please?”

“Fine,” Dirk says, holding up a finger before he can get a proper hand on himself. “Only because you asked so absurdly. You know what that old-timey jargon does to me.”

Luckily for Dirk, he’s too far past to the point of no return to argue or participate in witty banter. He wraps his hand around his aching dick and sees stars. The effect is immediate, and he realizes now he was a fool to ever think he could drag this out.

“Like I used to,” Dirks demands, breathless. “C’mon, I know you remember.”

He does. It’s something that he may never forget, in all his existence. He doesn’t even have to dig for the memories because they live right on the surface of his subconscious. There were times it was languid and lazy, just touching for the sake of touching. But he knows that’s not the manner in which Dirk is referring to now.

Jake strokes himself fast and desperate, stopping only to lewdly lick his palm for added ease. That’s what Dirk’s aiming for him to do, recreate those frantic moments where he touched him like it was the last time, every time—until eventually, it was.

“Goddamn,” Dirk hisses. “Jake.”

The crooked, satisfied grin hearing Dirk say his name in that fashion gives him lasts only a moment, quickly dropping into an open-mouth pant. Fingers trail down his sides, stopping just at the vee of his hips before traveling lower. Jake’s eyes nearly cross as he strains his neck down to look down to where they sit, snuggly framing the base of his cock.

It’s not enough to simply just remember. He has the desire to put his hands on hard, lean muscle. The desire to curl his fingers around a throat while he kisses, to feel his thumb trace a faint scar before he presses just below an Adam’s apple. More than any of that, just to feel the warmth of someone who loved him earnestly, even when he wasn’t sure what to do with that information.

“I wish I could touch you,” Jake whispers, honest in the heat of the moment. “God, _Dirk._ I wish I could touch you.”

“Yeah,” he says quietly, tense. “Just focus on you for now.”

There are noises filling the space between them, and absently it registers to Jake's blissed-out mind that they’re all coming from him; needy whines as he works himself and Dirk watches.

“You’re close,” Dirk observes. “Go ahead. Let go.”

Jake screws his eyes shut tightly, desperate and determined to hold out just a little longer. He doesn’t want to let go. God, isn’t that why Dirk is still here, years later, rattling around in his brain? Shaking his head, he slows his stroke, squeezing at the base harder than he particularly finds pleasurable.

Dirk must sense his resistance. One hand moves to trace down this inner thigh and up again, a phantom tingle pressing against his perineum.

Oh, fuck. _Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck_ —

He lets go. His body, taut and over-sensitive, seizes up, and he tips over the edge. Spilling over his fist, he works himself until the stimulation is too much and he has to pull away, carelessly wiping his hand down the side of his pant leg.

Dirk’s face twists in disgust. “Dude.”

“Oh, shut it,” Jake sighs, helplessly relaxed in his afterglow. He pats the space next to him, beckoning Dirk to lie down. The moment he lifts from his thighs, he kicks off his pants and briefs, banishing them both to the end of the bed.

Dirk floats like a feather down to the bed, slow in his descent and unusually quiet. When he settles, it’s on his back, hands behind his head and feet crossed at the ankles. His shades are back on, miraculously, and all Jake is graced with is the familiar sharp profile as he pays special attention to the sheer drape of the canopy above them.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Dirk huffs out a laugh. “There’s not enough pennies in your pocket. Sorry.” He turns his head, catching sight of the crestfallen manner on Jake’s face, and sighs. “I’m just thinking about what you said.”

“Oh,” Jake says weakly. “What did I say?”

“About wishing you could touch me.”

“Oh,” he repeats. “Well, I meant that.”

“I know you did. That’s why—” Dirk makes a frustrated noise. “I wish I could touch you too.”

“I could try to use my fancy hope powers again. Remember, back in the session, when I—”

“This isn’t about making me a real boy, Geppetto,” Dirks cuts in.

“What?”

“I’m trying to say, I don’t think I’m the one that _needs_ it. I want it, yeah. Sure. I want a hell of a whole lot of things. But do I _need_ it? I don’t think so.”

“Oh,” he says once again. A broken record, that’s him. Emphasis on broken. “Actually. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, honestly.”

“Remember that splinter of me I mentioned, the asshole hogging up the canon relevance? That guy. If any of us needs a trademark Jake-English-Spine-Crushing-Bear-Hug, I think it’s him. His whole pantomime, pretending he’s not a pathetic, scorned ex-lover, is really fuckin’ transparent.”

Jake’s brows furrow, watching Dirk, who is still content to study the ceiling rather than look at him, and tries to puzzle together the pieces he’s been given. The context. The clues. None of it fits together and feels more like he’s jamming a square into a circle. Constantly, the line is blurred. He claims that he’s made up entirely of his own perception of who Dirk is, or was, and yet he’s privy to information that Jake would never be able to fathom.

Such as this.

What in the _ever-loving fuck_ is Dirk going on about?

“Doesn’t really sound like a guy I’d want to give a hug to.”

“Understandable. He’s a real bastard.”

“And he’s…you?”

“Yeah. I mean,” Dirk says, finally looking over, “I’m real bastard too.”

Jake cracks a wry smile. “At times.”

“Hah,” he says dryly. “The point is. I know I’m here to help you, and everyone else in the process. But I think I need you to help me too. Or—some other version of me, I guess.”

“Of course. Well, I’ll be sure to do my best,” Jake tells him cheerily. Though, beneath the surface he feels…a little guilty. He’s well aware that his best isn’t the greatest, but he owes it to Brain Ghost Dirk and whoever this mystery Bastard Narrative-Hungry version of Dirk is that he’s so damn worried about. “I owe you that.”

Dirk laughs. “You don’t owe me for an orgasm. We’re way past that, bro.”

“I—that wasn’t what I was implying,” Jake sputters, regaining a little confidence when he catches sight of Dirk’s barely-there smile. Oh, he’s being teased. Again, but in a much less sexy way.

“I know, calm down. Hey, do you think you can get some rest now?”

The lethargy that’d seeped its way into his bones had gone unnoticed until Dirk brought his attention to it. Suddenly, the heaviness takes a hold, dragging him down, and slowly his limbs feel like they’re melting into the mattress. He hasn’t felt this relaxed without a liquid aid in some time—and he had to admit that this technique was a lot more pleasant that his usual soporific of choice.

“Now that you mention it,” Jake pauses to yawn, “I do feel sluggish.”

“Good. Close your eyes then.”

Just like before, when Dirk had haughtily instructed him to turn on his back, Jake obeys. It’s the final nail in the coffin, his consciousness fading at the edges into black. He attempts to mumble a polite goodnight, reaching out with his hand to where he thinks Dirk might be, but too lazy to open his eyes and check. It's enough to know he's there.

Right before sleep pulls him under the current, Jake feels a tickle on his temple and then his cheek, both in the distinct shape of lips. Dirk kisses him.

Or, at least, he hopes.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! feedback is always appreciated! 
> 
> insta is the where i'm most active, so if you wanna come talk to me about dirkjake, you can find me at my fandom account @ ectobaby there! (but warning: i do be posting a lotta dirkjohn)


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